


Behold, and prove the change

by onelonelystory



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Beholding Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Case Fic, Hand wavey library logistics, Indian Character, It's mentioned a couple times in passing, It's plot important but not angsty, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist is Good With Kids, Lonely Avatar Martin Blackwood, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Apocalypse, Racism, at least probably not, safehouse fic, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26378560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onelonelystory/pseuds/onelonelystory
Summary: Jon blinks from not-sleep into wakefulness with the statement that ended the world in his hands. He drops it like it burns. Seconds ago Martin was by his side in the midst of the apocalypse, but minutes ago, Martin had left the safehouse to step into the village and give him some space with…He shoves himself backward, somewhat resembling a scared crab. His breath comes in short bursts and he wonders how long it has been since he needed to breathe....The long and arduous process of regaining one's humanity in the aftermath of an apocalypse that never was. Or, Jon snaps to attention after the apocalypse, sent back in time to just before he spoke the words. Jon was the king of a ruined world, but it's through telling stories and helping children and caring for his friends and loving his boyfriend that he can become human in a world that is whole.
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Callum Brodie & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 28
Kudos: 251
Collections: Rusty Quill Big Bang 2020





	Behold, and prove the change

Jon blinks from not-sleep into wakefulness with the statement that ended the world in his hands. He drops it like it burns. Seconds ago Martin was by his side in the midst of the apocalypse, but minutes ago, Martin had left the safehouse to step into the village and give him some space with…

He shoves himself backward, somewhat resembling a scared crab. His breath comes in short bursts and he wonders how long it has been since he needed to _breathe._

Minutes, of course. It is October 18, 2018, and while his humanity is debatable, there is no world where people can live breathless. Nor has there ever been. Not for several seconds, anyway.

It takes a few more unsteady breaths for Jon to recall what it is like to exist in a world where he only Knows what he wants to know. There are so many things he needs to understand, so many people he needs to check in on. The status of the apocalypse and the end of the world is hanging in the balance. But Jon can’t bring himself to do much more in this moment than savor the sweet relief of being able to shut his eyes.

The door slams open, and there is Martin, panting as if he had sprinted, and then there is Martin, on the floor and with his arms around Jon. They sit for a moment in silence. Jon listens to Martin’s heartbeat and, when he can steel himself to it, brings the tips of his fingers to his own throat. There is a steady pulse and Jon wants to collapse. He isn’t sure there’s much further he can break down, and that is all that holds him steady.

“Do you remember?” Jon whispers. 

The air buzzes with static and noise. “Yes,” Martin says, softly. “I remember. Turn that off now, would you?”

“Sorry,” Jon mumbles. “I forgot I could.”

“That’s okay.” There is a pause. “Does… everyone remember?”

Jon shifts, breathes one more breath and sits up. Slowly, carefully, he opens his eyes. “Not… everyone. I think-” He shakes his head. “Only avatars remember.”

Martin stills. “But I’m not-”

“I think you might have been. I mean. I think it counts.”

Martin sucks at his teeth. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

Jon laughs. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“No, I think the question is whether we’ve got to worry about it.”

“Strictly-business Martin is very hot,” Jon teases.

“Jon-”

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry. What do you need to know?”

“If everything is back to how it was before…”

“Everyone who died is back, I think. Or, not _back,_ no one can come back from the dead, they just never died in the first place. Nothing that happened during the apocalypse… _happened._ ”

“And I’m guessing that includes the avatars and menagerie you smote.”

“Yes.”

“Damn.”

Jon laughs. “Anything else?”

“Will anyone be trying anything?”

He thinks for a moment. “No, I doubt they will. The fears overfilled themselves, I think- however brief it may have been, there was a world for a moment that was only fear and every single one of them _gorged_ themselves. They’re in something of a hibernation, I think. I doubt they will demand anything of their avatars beyond what the avatars themselves need to sustain their own appetites.”

“And those desires aren’t going to be to, I don’t know, start the apocalypse back up?”

“I don’t think so. I mean you saw it, it hardly served _them_ well. And there’s death doing its eternal duty regardless. So long as they don’t have the ever-present demand of their fears, I can’t imagine they would break this paltry sort of truce.”

“Fair enough, I suppose.” 

And that’s it. Jon wishes in some ways that it wasn’t, that he’d asked the question he’d had brimming on the tip of his tongue; could Jon bring it all back? Could he start it over again?

He could. He’d burn the statement if he’d thought it would help, but the words were seared to his mind and his tongue. All it would take was for him to speak them, and everyone knew it. 

“Let’s call Basira,” Jon says. “You were going to, a minute ago. Let’s go together.”

“I think she could probably use a moment to adjust,” Martin laughs.

“She doesn’t remember.”

“What?”

“I mean I don’t know if… no I know we should tell her, I just don’t know when. I’m not sure I’m ready for it yet, myself, trying to explain the end of the world, but we said we’d reach out when we got settled in, and, well. We’re settled.”

“So settled we moved in and then out again, yeah. What do you mean she doesn’t remember?”

“Avatars only. I can’t really… _See_ Georgie or Melanie very clearly but I don’t think they remember either. We’ll tell them eventually too, because I think they ought to know.”

“But _I_ remember.”

Jon contemplates misunderstanding, but decides against it. “You do.”

“Well, _damn,_ ” Martin says.

“Well, damn,” Jon agrees.

They sit there on the floor of the cabin for a while, and then they walk out the door together into the world that is not and never was the apocalypse. They call Basira. She tells them how her chase has been, says she’s been seeing Daisy on every corner but is never sure if it’s real. She’s kinder to Martin than she is to Jon, still speaks to Jon like the monster she knows him to be. If only she knew.

The call lasts into evening hours, but the two of them wander in the space between the village and the safehouse for a while, savoring the world around them. At one point Martin nudges Jon from his thoughts to point at a cow grazing in pasture and they look at each other and laugh. 

Memories of time that never passed are a weight on both their shoulders, but their weight is eased by the absence of the fear that had defined their surroundings for so long.

  
  


They spend about a week in the peace of that quiet ease. Neither of them need to eat, more than the numb hunger of being indentured to a higher power. 

They watch the sun rise every morning. It hadn’t done that when the world had ended.

It’s nice, wandering through the small village of people, full of worry and fear, but also love, and hope, and life. Jon and Martin spend every day in town, getting to know their neighbors like they hadn’t been able to before, with a newfound appreciation for the _humanity_ of it.

A week in, Jon gets bored.

“Jon love, this is the third time you’ve vacuumed the kitchen today.”

“Ah, yes, well, I missed three spots I suppose.”

“That’s quite unlike you.”

“Yes, quite.”

Martin shoots him a pointed look. “Darling, not to pass judgement, but I don’t know that I’ve met a single person besides you who could go stir-crazy in a new town the week after the apocalypse.”

“I’m not _stir-crazy,_ Martin, I’m,” Jon gesticulates wildly. “Vacuuming!”

“You certainly are.”

They stare each other down stubbornly. Jon gives in first. He shuts his eyes, sighs huge, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I need something to _do,_ Martin.”

“I’m assuming you don’t mean going for another walk this evening.”

“Well, I’d rather like to do that, too, but-”

“But aside from that. I get it. We’ll get you a job in the morning, but until then, will you please stop with the vacuum?”

Jon stops with the vacuum.

The next morning they drive together into town as they had been doing every morning for the past week. But that morning, instead of lingering to chat with Mauve from the post station after petting the stray cat that stops by to visit, Martin pulls Jon into the city center to begin their search.

“Remind me, what’s your job experience before the archives?”

“Worked at a Tesco’s in Bournemouth till uni, then worked at a Tesco’s in Oxfordshire through uni, then worked at a Tesco’s in London till 2011.”

“We could find you a nearby retailer.”

“I would rather die.”

Martin laughs. “Well, do you know any sports? I’m sure the rec center would be glad for some extra hands.”

Jon pales. Martin laughs harder.

“Well, come on now. What does your resume look like? Surely you’ve got to have some marketable skills that kept you at the institute.”

“Nothing _useful,_ I don’t think.”

“I’m sure there’s something.”

Jon sighs. “I did joint honours at Oxford… sociology and criminology. Masters in just criminology. The goal was to leverage it to find a research position in a paranormal study, so I guess four years at uni paid off.” He did a half-hearted fistpump. 

“You went to _Oxford_?”

“I was good in school, is that so unbelievable?”

“No, of course not.” Martin shakes his head. “I just guess I always assumed, you know, because you worked at the institute… Well. It’s hardly a reputable organization.”

“You worked for the institute too, Martin.”

“I faked my qualifications!”

“You faked _good_ qualifications. Better than an unrelated social sciences background from Oxford.”

“I suppose it _is_ rather strange that you managed to make head archivist without Library Studies.”

“That’s what Georgie said,” John pouts. “But you’re right. I had to get CILIP certified to move into the archives and I figured that was that. It hardly seemed early on that Gertrude had any more experience, and like you said, the Magnus Institute has never been _reputable._ ”

“You’re CILIP certified?”

“That is what I just said, yes. Technically to even work at the institute, you have to join CILIP. The head of research signed off on my portfolio as my mentor so ultimately it was an easy process.”

“Then why don’t you just work at the library?”

Jon hesitates. “I doubt I’m qualified to work at a library,” he said, brushing it off.

“Jon. You’re CILIP certified and Oxbridge educated. I think you’ll be fine.”

“Isn’t it a… I don’t know, doesn’t it sound like a bad idea to do that kind of work again?”

Martin shoots him an incredulous look. “You know, Jon, somehow I doubt the mastermind of the newest iteration of the Watcher’s Crown is waiting for you in a public library in rural Scotland.”

“But what if they _are_?” 

“You’ll just have to kindly remind them which one of you was the boss of the apocalypse. Besides, don’t you Know that they aren’t?”

A pause. “...Yes,” Jon grumbles.

“Well, there you go.”

The library sits at the intersection of Ancrum and Main Street, sandwiched between the primary school and the village hall. It is a ramshackle structure, resembling more a barn or shed than a building. Still, it’s neatly kept, circled by a flower garden and a little stone path. 

Martin shoves Jon to the door and gives him a pat on the back. “I’m going to go brood by the docks and see if I can’t find some inspiration,” he says, walking away without leaving Jon much room to protest.

And then it was Jon, a stone path, and a door. “Right then,” he sighs. “Best get this over with.”

He walks up the stone path and knocks on the door. It swings open; not ominously or with a looming sense of being watched, just with a light touch and a creek indicating it hadn’t meant to be closed. Jon fits the doorstop back into place and walks inside.

Patrons are milling about, here and there. Jon turns to the info desk. The librarian gives him a brief look and turns back to her typing. He waits awkwardly.

She finishes whatever she had been working on and faces him with a stern once over. “Can I help you, young man?”

“Would this library perhaps be hiring?” he asks, hoping to avoid the awkward tension.

She frowns at his voice, and Jon shrinks in on himself ever so slightly. She sticks her hand out, and Jon stares at it, confused. She gives it an insistent shake, and Jon hands her his resume. 

“Should I fill out some sort of application, or…?”

She shoots him a look. “We don’t have the kind of money to pay an Oxford graduate’s salary, son.”

“Oh, I don’t need money.” Her expression remains sour. “Or. Money is no object. I am completely happy to accept whatever salary is typical for the role I perform.”

“I don’t know what kind of leisurely volunteer trip you think this is going to be-”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” He stumbles over his words. Jon doesn’t understand how it was possible that he keeps getting people all mixed up when he literally Knows whatever he needs to. “I… I have money saved up, I am not worried about that, or…”

She raises a skeptical brow in his direction.

Jon takes a deep breath. “Ma’am I mean no insult. My former employer was evil, but he paid well. Money is not a concern for me right now, I just would really, really like to work for someone who is not evil.”

Jon briefly contemplates bashing his head against the desk but worries that watching someone die and then be revived by the powers of an eldritch fear god might distress the poor old woman more than his nonsense already had.

She laughs. “Alright then, son, let’s get you situated.”

He looks up at her incredulously. “Pardon?”

“You’re pardoned. I’m Pauline, by the way.”

“I Know,” Jon says accidentally. He hurries to cover it up. “Sorry, your… nametag. That was rude.”

“It was,” says Pauline. “Anyway, there’s a host of bureaucratic nonsense we’ve got to get fixed up, but we’ve been short-staffed for years. If you’re really willing to ignore pay negotiations, I should be able to get you set by the end of the day.”

Jon balks. “The _day?_ ”

“You’re very overqualified, young man, and I really doubt we’ll stumble into much conflict here. We ain’t some big name London Institution, we don’t need that much scrutiny. Come along, now.” She walks out from behind the desk toward a small office at the back.

Jon follows.

Martin picks him up at around three, and they grab tea. By the time they finish and return to the library, Jon has a job.

“Turn up early, tomorrow,” Pauline warns. 

  
  


Jon has been working at the library for only four days, but he has an inkling his coworkers don’t like him very much.

He doesn’t have a lot of evidence to support this, and none of the malice seems like anything worth Knowing about yet, but he has definitely gotten the impression that his coworkers don’t like him very much.

For their part, Lewis, Jane, and Rachel don’t think Jon responsible for the impending apocalypse, or for entrapping them in a deadly scheme, or for the horrors of the world that only he could know, which make their opinions of him markedly higher than his former colleagues. 

This isn’t saying much.

“Smarmy bastard,” Lewis mutters to the other two from their vantage on the other side of the break room.

Lewis is a rather gentle looking man, with fair hair and dark eyes and thin wrists and fluffy sweaters. He looks in particular disdain at Jon, who is not eating the homemade pudding Jane had brought in. Because he doesn’t need to eat. 

“Bet he thinks he’s too good for my gran’s food,” Jane agrees. “Bet he’s got all sorts of London favorites and thinks a simple _treacle tart_ doesn’t cut it.”

Jane is not a gentle looking woman at all. One would not be inaccurate in describing her demeanor as stern, though her round, young face typically detracted from the harshness of it. Now, though, her eyes are full of a veritable rage.

“He just completely brushed off Mr. Dunlap this morning,” Rachel puts in.

Rachel is a rail-thin middle aged woman, greying at the roots with wrinkles coming in. She has been working at the library for nearly twenty years, and finds herself rather protective of her patrons.

“Well, to be fair, you know how Mr. Dunlap can be,” Lewis says.

“Especially to…” Jane looks to her left, then her right, before dropping her voice lower than her previous whisper, “people like him.”

“True enough,” Rachel concedes. “I still think he could have been nicer about it.”

“He hardly seems like a nice man, in any capacity,” Jane says with a certain disdain.

“Did you know, his first day here, I mishelved a book and when he caught it he lectured me for twenty minutes on the history of the dewey decimal system?” Lewis complains.

“He hasn’t even studied library sciences.” That gets Jane a rather disapproving look from her two older colleagues, neither of whom had studied library sciences at uni themselves. “Not to say that’s what makes one qualified! Only that, well, surely he’s got no place to be saying all that to you.”

“He’s a rather strange fellow, isn’t he?” Rachel ponders. “Where do you suppose he got all of those funny looking round scars?”

“Do you think he might have been involved in gang activity?” Jane wonders.

Someone clears their throat from behind them. They flinch. “I wonder, is speculating about the past of our newest hire part of your job descriptions?”

“Sorry, Pauline,” they mumble in unison. 

“Jonathan,” Pauline calls across the room, “do try to be more sociable in the future. It won’t do to not know your coworkers at all, will it?”

“Yes’m,” Jon says apologetically.

“Now, let’s get out there, we’re opening in ten and Mrs. Ables is already staring through the windows.”

The rest of the day goes rather smoothly, all things considered. Jon is standoffish at best, rude at worst. He is rather fond of the place and enjoyed the work, but he is not well suited to customer service at all. His coworkers missed no opportunity to look at each other pointedly whenever he was impolite towards a patron, but Rachel did step in when Mr. Dunlap started being invasive about Jon’s immigration status this time. 

“Yes, Mrs. Ables, I am absolutely certain that it has been checked out,” Jon says tiredly as the clock ticks closer and closer to 7pm closing time.

“Couldn’t you check once more?” she asks urgently.

“I don’t think it will be there when it hasn’t been the last three times you asked, Mrs. Ables, but I will check one last time if you promise me you’ll let me check you out with the rest of your books, first.”

“No need to be so snappy, young man.”

“I don’t think I have been snappy, Mrs. Ables, please don’t waste both of our time.”

“Why, I never!”

“Can I check you out now?”

Mrs. Ables begrudgingly hands over her bag of books.

“Thank you.” He makes quick work of the stash and walks back into the shelves, where Jane had been listening while shelving books.

“You could stand to be nicer to her,” she whispers.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Jon whispers back, leaning in conspiratorially, “I’m not very nice.” He smiles at her before walking back out to tell Mrs. Ables the book was, once again, absent, leaving Jane standing awkwardly, a blush rising to her cheeks.

They do manage to field Mrs. Ables out the door by closing, and Pauline dismisses them, saying she’ll lock up herself. The four of them stand on the stoop together.

“Well, I’ll be heading home now,” Lewis lies, clearly trying to break up the tension so that Jon will let the three of them leave together for drinks.

“Right, of course,” Jon says, a little awkwardly. “I’ll just get going myself.”

And so Jon heads home. 

Martin is out in the garden, where he has taken to spending his time. He says the isolation helps when he’s hungry, but it’s hard to feel lonely surrounded by so much life. Jon thinks it’s cute, likes coming home to his tiny boyfriend surrounded by flowers and bushes taller than he was.

“Did you eat?” Martin asks, head poking out from between two bushy trees.

“Asked one of the patrons how she was doing this afternoon and she told me about how she killed her abusive husband in the 50’s.”

Martin nods. “You doing alright? You look dead on your feet.” 

Maybe it is because it’s less now, a background urge. Maybe it’s because Martin feels the same kind of hunger. But Jon wonders how much the not-end-of-the-world must have shifted the two of them, that there’s no accusation around Jon fulfilling his monstrousness. Mostly lately he’s been worried Jon’s overworking himself, petitioning for more days off.

“I’m okay,” Jon says. “It’s just…”

“Did something happen? Should I be worried?”

“No! No. Just,” Jon laughs and musses his hair sheepishly, “my coworkers don’t like me.” 

Martin makes his way out of the bushes. “Well, they’ll just have to get to know you better.”

“At my last job, every single one of my coworkers had a worse impression of me when I left than when we first met,” Jon points out wryly.

“Yes, but that was because…”

“Because?”

“There were extenuating circumstances!”

Jon looks down at Martin, with his hands on his hips and cheeks puffed with air. He leans down and pecks him on the nose. “I suppose they were,” he concedes. 

That evening felt warm, the two of them talking out on the front stoop long after the sun fades. Eventually, though, they go inside to settle in. Jon wraps himself around Martin, tucking his cold hands and feet under warm skin and giggling at the startled jolt it pulls out of his boyfriend. 

And then Jon sleeps. And then Jon dreams other people’s dreams.

  
  


Jon has been working at the library for three weeks, and the opinion of his coworkers has, if anything, worsened.

Well. Jane has a bit of a crush, but she still thinks he’s rude and entitled. He knows the three of them gossip about him behind his back, but he can’t think of any way to endear himself to them. It seems as though they have made up their mind about the kind of man he is.

Pauline likes him, though. He’s actually far more confused about that than he is about the other three.

“Stop loitering and go help Mrs. Stell sign into the computer, son,” she says. 

Mrs. Stell is a rude old lady who refuses to accept help with anything. She’s also been struggling over her computer login for the better half of the last hour. Jon sighs and walks over.

He pretends to ignore the three faces glaring intently in his direction.

“Mrs. Stell, do you need any help?”

“I don’t need your help, you little upstart. Why are you wasting time bothering me? Go, leave me alone.”

“Trust me when I say I don’t want to be dealing with you any more than you want to be dealing with me, Mrs. Stell, but you’ve only got twenty minutes before the computer session ends and then you’ll have to do this all over again.”

Mrs. Stell lets him help.

Jane, Lewis, and Rachel convene in the break room. 

“Can you believe him?” Rachel exclaims. “The nerve! The disrespect!”

“I bet they don’t care much about manners in a big city like London, huh?” adds Lewis.

“He thinks he can get away with anything, just because he’s got that fancy accent and nice hair.” Jane puts in. Rachel and Lewis give her a look. “What! Just because he’s a fucking bastard I can’t think he’s hot?”

Rachel hums. “If I were ten years younger,” she agrees.

“I don’t see it.”

“You’re not attracted to men, Lewis.”

“Well he’s not exactly a David Beckham type, is he?”

“Do you think David Beckham is the only hot man?” Jane sounds curious.

“No, I just assume that’s the type, am I wrong? I’m just saying, Sims is hardly all square and buff like that.”

“There’s an appeal to his half-dead and dangerous aesthetic.”

Jane nods emphatically. “Exactly! He’s mysterious.” She pauses. “Still an ass, though.”

“Oh, certainly.”

“The absolute worst.”

They shittalk the man for a while, making good use of their lunch break they never usually take. Not that they eat lunch so much as they brew three pots of tea and finish off the try of cookies Jane’s gran made. 

At 4 o’ clock, Rachel comes to a realization. “It’s a weekday,” she says.

“Yes?” Jane confirms.

“So the kids came in when they were let out,” Rachel says slowly, “And Pauline hates children.”

“Which means…” Lewis’ eyes widen in horror. 

The three of them make eye contact, carefully put down their mugs, and burst out onto the floor just in time to see Jon, his pointers curled behind his thumbs and his last three fingers splayed like long lashes with his hands at the corners of his eyes, turning a wide-eyed glare from corner to corner at tiny faces looking up at him enraptured.

“Run, little girl,” he growls, gravely and severe. Then suddenly, almost like something has snapped, he throws one arm out and back and the other forward, palm facing his crowd. When he speaks, it’s smoother, honey-like. “And he _pushes_ her down.”

There’s a chorus of little screams. Jane, Lewis, and Rachel look on, jaws on the floor, as little children fall back, giggly, more startled than in fear, as older ones lean forward in suspense.

“But!” Jon says to a captive audience. “Do you think Ms. Rose is weak?”

“No!” says the chorus.

“No, of course not! So she’s in the cave of monsters, but the story’s not over yet!” 

Jane clears her throat and Jon startles in her direction. “I’ll take over. You can get back to whatever you were doing.”

“No, Mr. Jon,” one of the kids cries out, “you have to finish the story! You promised it wasn’t over yet!” Several little voices hop in to voice their agreement.

Jon smiles down indulgently. He offers his coworkers a wave of the arm as if to say, ‘what can you do?’ then turns back to the circle of small children without a second glance. “Now where was I?”

“The cave! She just walked inta the cave!”

“Ah, yes. So Ms. Rose walked into the cave of monsters…”

  
  


Pauline puts him in charge of watching the kids when school lets out. “Don’t know how you can stand those snotty little things, but you seem good enough with them,” she says. “And besides, it might do them some good to have someone watching them beyond just making sure they’re not causing chaos”

Rachel in particular fumes at this, as she was the one who had made the ‘make sure the kids are not causing chaos’ rotations.

But Jon really is good with the kids, and they love him. There’s a five hour window every weekday, now, where Jon doesn’t think about anything that has ever happened and especially not anything that has never happened, too caught up in entertaining his gaggle of 5-to-10 year olds.

“Mr. Jon,” asks Jon’s favorite six year old one day, “how come your skin is all broken?”

“Well, Ty,” Jon says, “how would you like a story?”

Ty nods eagerly, and so do five other children. 

Jon laughs. “How about…” he looks at his right hand. “This one?”

The kids ooo appropriately at the drama in the way he shows his burnt hand.

“Alright, then. This is the story of a particularly bothersome moth and a very angry flame.” 

It doesn’t take much to soften the edges of a true story when you tell it in abstracts and metaphors. He knows that only a few of the older children read between the lines, but he thinks the kids all understand, regardless. It wasn’t the moth’s fault that the flame was hot, you see. But a flame is always hot, and the moth is the one who forgot that.

This particular Thursday, Ty’s mom is working late and so he’s the last kid left, minutes before the library closes. 

“What if she doesn’t make it in time?” Ty whispers from his chair, kicking his little legs and staring at the clock.

“I suppose you’ll have to be stuck with me a little longer,” Jon says, typing something up for Pauline.

“Oh.” Some of the tension falls from Ty’s shoulders. “I guess that’s alright, then.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Mr. Jon, what’s death?”

Jon stops typing.

“That’s a pretty tough question, Ty. I’m not really sure what the answer is. Why are you asking?”

“My ma says I’m too young to understand death.”

“Can I tell you a secret Ty?”

Ty looks up at him and nods solemnly.

“I don’t think anyone understands death, no matter how old they get.”

“That’s kind of sad, Mr. Jon.”

“Is it?” Jon shrugs. “Maybe there are some things we just can’t understand.”

“It hurts, though,” Ty says. “I want to understand it, if it has to hurt so bad.”

At that, Jon freezes. “Death hurts?”

“Yeah. Death hurts.”

Ty’s mom walks in and apologizes profusely for being late, and that’s the end of it.

The next afternoon, the kids plead with Jon to tell a story about space wars. Jon did his best, told the story of an immortal space pirate and the friend he made joining the Earth forces in a war against the moon. Once upon a time he used to tell this story with considerably more blood and gore, but he makes it lighthearted and fun without taking out too much of the story. The disembodied singing head stays, and it bothers the kids less than it had bothered some previous adult audiences. 

Ty stays late again. He follows Jon through the library, and offers to help shelve books. Jon agrees, careful Ty doesn’t see the books he has to reshelve.

“Mr. Jon,” Ty says carefully when Jon lifts him to put one of the encyclopedias in place, “I want to tell you something.”

“What do you want to tell me?” Jon asks, and is horrified to feel the tickle of compulsion behind his words.

“I died, I think,” Ty says, taking on the tone of a statement-giver. It’s unsettling to hear it come from someone so small. “I don’t know what it means, but when I was little I was in the hospital a whole lot and then one day I wasn’t in the hospital anymore. I met someone.

“Someone mean.

“I told him I didn’t want to be there, that I needed to be back at the hospital… the doctors and my mama and my pops, they kept telling me that I needed to be at the hospital all the time, or else I might never get better. And I didn’t want to never get better. I have a little brother, and I wanted to get better so that we could play together. Janie has a big brother, and she says it’s never nice when he doesn’t play with her. I wanted to be nice, so I had to get better, so I had to be in the hospital. I told the man that, but he didn’t listen. He didn’t listen at all.”

Ty keeps going, telling the story of a shadowy figure who never spoke or moved and the place it took him to. He describes a land where everything is dead, where there are ghosts but only when you aren’t looking at them. He tells Jon about the walk that it was, how even though the figure seemed perfectly still, the world was moving past them and Ty had to keep walking. He tells Jon about how at the end of it, he walked right into the figure and saw the world through its eyes, and how everything was so crowded and full, but that everyone and everything was as silent and still as the figure itself. And then he tells Jon he had to walk all the way back home to his hospital bed.

“And it hurts, Mr. Jon, but I don’t know what any of it _means_ and I want to know so I can stop being scared of how bad it hurts.”

Jon looks down in helplessness. “I’m so sorry it hurts, Ty. I’m so sorry I don’t know how to make you less afraid.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Jon,” Ty whispers, “I just feel better that you know.”

Jon isn’t sure if Ty will feel the same once he starts showing up in his nightmares. But for now, he pats Ty on the head and shows him where to shelve literary analysis texts.

  
  


Ty hasn’t shown up in Jon’s dreams yet, which Jon counts as a win. He’s glad to have Ty’s company in the evenings whenever his mom works late, but he’s glad that after he goes home, there’s no Ty to haunt. At least, not yet. He’s not so naive as to assume it will never happen.

The kids at the library are absurdly fond of Jon, and he always makes sure to have new stories to tell. Melody, seven years old, started asking Jon for book recommendations a week ago, and now Jon walks a train of primary school students around the library to pick up books they’ll enjoy every day. His coworkers give him a wide berth every morning and watch him with suspicion on weekday afternoons. 

Pauline has geared his workload towards the planning and organization of child-focused events, meaning he only really has to work the floor when the kids are there, and the rest of his days are spent working on his own. Jon appreciates this. He has never been particularly geared towards customer service, and being the only brown man in a town of about a thousand hasn’t helped. He deals with patrons over the age of 13 only very rarely, and he is happy with his new routine.

A month and a half after the world doesn’t end, Callum Brodie moves to Scotland, and Jon Knows it.

He’d been having trouble in school. The bullying had only gotten worse since the apocalypse didn’t happen, and in the matter of a few weeks he’d been expelled from his school. His mother thought perhaps getting out of the city would be good for him, found a job that paid not-quite-as-well at a hospital just out of Aberdeen, and dragged her son kicking and screaming. 

He isn’t sure how he’s going to logistically make Callum’s mother believe he means no harm, but he just cannot let a child be left alone with the knowledge of an end of the world that never was. 

Jon waits for Martin to wake up and see the panic in his eyes.

“Jon love, what’s wrong?”

Jon tells him. 

Martin gives a contemplative hum. “Right then,” he says, “tell her the cult he escaped from hurt you, too, and you think someone with similar experiences might be helpful to him. Get Basira to vouch for you; surely as the officer who found him, her word will be trustworthy, even if she’s since left the force.”

Jon looks down at his wonderful, amazing, brilliant boyfriend with stars in his eyes.

“What? I’ve had to make my fair share of lies in my life, you know,”

“You’re a genius.”

Jon calls Basira after work that day, doesn’t tell her about the apocalypse yet, but tells her about Callum, about how he Knows he’s struggling, and begs her to cover for him. She agrees grudgingly to send Caroline Brodie an email with Jon’s information.

It takes two days. Jon gnaws his fingernails to his fingertips, refusing to invade Caroline’s privacy anymore than he has with his lie. On the third day after he calls Basira, Jon signs onto his work computer to an email waiting for him from crbrodie@mail.uk saying hello and asking if Jon would like to visit after work the next day. 

Jon agrees.

The drive from their small town to the Brodies’ is about 45 minutes through winding country streets. Jon takes it at night, reaches at around 9. Caroline is there to greet him.

“I took the day off work,” she says, “I have to work late here, it’s hard to control shifts. I couldn’t get a weekend off, I’m sorry.”

“It’s perfectly alright, Ms. Brodie,” Jon assures.

“Please, call me Caroline.” She turns to yell. “Callum! Mr. Sims is here to see you!”

Callum comes to the door. “Hello again, eye man.”

Caroline had set a pot of water to boil, and she brews them tea as Callum and Jon stare each other down across the table. 

“What’re you doing here, Eye guy,” Callum says , suspiciously. “You don’t get to boss me around here, you know.”

“I hadn't been planning on it,” Jon answers. “How’s school going? Making any friends?”

Callum scowls, twisted and mean. “I locked someone in the supply closet Thursday, how’s that?”

“Are you friends?”

“Obviously not.”

“Then I don’t think it quite counts.”

“Seriously, you massive creeper in the sky, what do you want from me?”

Jon shrugs. “See, I’m lucky. I’ve got a boyfriend who remembers with me, so I’m never alone. I figured it was unfair for you to be stuck with all that on your own.”

“I can handle it, nerd.”

“I’m sure. You’re a tough one. I’d say I could name a lot of kids who could attest to it, but none of them remember.”

Callum’s face crumples. “Plenty people remember, just none you know,” he says urgently.

“I Know a lot of things,” Jon says. “I’m just here in case someone who knows all the things you know is needed. No one deserves to feel alone, Callum.”

That earns him a pretty disgusted look. “Whatever, Eye guy.” Callum storms upstairs.

“Sorry about him,” Caroline says, bringing him a mug of tea.

“Not a problem at all,” Jon says. “Trust me, when I was going through the things he is… I was much older, but I think I must have been ten times worse.”

“That’s hard to believe,” she laughs, “you’re such a polite young gentleman.”

Jon pulls a face. “You can’t be more than a few years older than me, and I’ve been told I look much older than I am, that’s hardly a qualifier I’d expect.”

“You don’t look old at all!” Caroline protests. “Just a bit hardened. I think it suits you.”

He offers her a sheepish thank you.

  
  


Jon’s days get longer. Caroline works 6 days a week, and on Mondays and Thursdays she doesn’t get off before Callum’s school ends their after hours program. So Jon spends two days a week after shift ends and all day most Saturdays with his favorite bratty twelve year old.

“Your coworkers still bullying you, Eye guy?” Callum asks, tossing his bag into the backseat of Jon’s car.

“They don’t bully me, Callum.”

“Oh, no they do, for sure. Trust me, I’m an expert.”

Jon snorts and shakes his head. “Get in the car, please, I’m holding up the soccer moms.”

Callum gets in the car. “We learned ‘bout the water cycle again in science today.”

“Again?”

“Well we learn it like every year. We got to use the burners today though, so that was cool.”

“God, you and Martin both, what is this fascination with setting things on fire?”

“‘S pretty,” Callum defends, picking at loose threads in his t-shirt. “Also, I’m nothing like your boyfriend.”

“Why not?”

“I’m cool, for one,” he says, with all the assuredness of a 12 year old saying something very obvious to a stupid adult.

“Martin’s cool!”

“Yeah, right. Why’s he dating you then?”

A goofy little smile falls on Jon’s lips. “I ask myself the same question every morning.”

Callum retches.

Jon takes them to pick up drinks at the coffee shop on the way back because he’d lost a bet the last time they were together. When they get to the house, Callum kicks his shoes off and holes himself away up in his room. He didn’t like doing homework where Jon could see, but Caroline hadn’t asked Jon to check up on it, and Callum seemed invested enough in his classes that Jon doubted that his problems in school had much to do with a lack of dedication. He calls him down for dinner time, and other than that, leaves the kid to his own devices.

Caroline gets back at 10, wearing a warm expression and holding her arms out. Jon takes the hug.

“How was work?” he asks.

“Oh, don’t get me _started,_ ” she says, rolling out the tension in her shoulders and shooting him a smile. “It wasn’t so bad. A lot quieter than it was back in London.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ll just head out-”

“Oh! Shit.” Caroline slaps her hand to her forehead. “I almost forgot. Can I ask you for a huge favor?”

“Right, of course. What’s wrong?”

“Callum’s school lets out for break on the 21st, but I’ve got shifts scheduled till after Christmas Eve. Do you think you could maybe take him for a couple days? Let me know if it’s too much hassle,” She rushes to say. “I can figure something out, I don’t want to disturb your holiday plans.”

“Neither of us celebrate Christmas,” Jon waves off. “Would Callum be okay with that?”

Caroline’s eyes dart to the stairwell quickly and she lowers her voice. “He’s the one who suggested it, actually,” she says, a smile playing at her lips.

Jon’s heart melts a little. “I’ll talk to Martin and let you know?”

“Sounds great,” Caroline says.

Martin is, as he usually is when Jon gets home after nights at the Brodies’, asleep. It’s become a point of contention in the house, that they keep missing each other between Martin’s frequent self isolation and Jon’s increasingly rigid schedule. But Jon leans down to kiss his forehead, and when he lies down Martin leans back against his chest, and Jon drifts off the same way he always does, so tonight, like every other night with Martin, is all he needs a night to be.

Jon brings it up in the morning. “Well, at least it means you’ll be driving less that week.” Martin sighs adorably. “Wish you would be driving less because you’d decided to take a break or something, but I guess this works too.”

“Thank you,” Jon says, leaning down so the space between their faces could be spanned by a couple sheets of paper. 

Martin looks at him, unamused. 

Jon pouts.

“... You’re so silly, darling,” Martin says, rolling his eyes and closing the distance. 

Caroline drops Callum off on the night of the 22nd. Jon had offered to pick him up so she’d be in less of a rush after her shift, but Caroline insisted, citing the desire to finally meet Martin in person.

“Jon talks about you often,” she tells him.

“Ah, and the same of you,” Martin replies, blushing lightly.

Callum makes faces at him from behind his mother, but stops when Martin doesn’t give much in the way of a satisfying response. Martin tries to invite Caroline in for tea, but she insists that she really should be going and thanks him for his generosity.

“I like her,” Martin admits reluctantly, as they watch her drive away.

“Hey, Eye guy!” Callum calls from inside. “I’m gonna break the lock on this door!”

Martin looks back, panicked. 

“Already did, Callum, but it can’t hurt to give it another whack,” Jon calls back.

“Jon!” Martin hissed. “You can’t just- he can’t just-”

“I’ll fix it after he’s gone, promise,” Jon assures. “But he won’t sleep in the room if there’s a lock, and you don’t want a sleep deprived adolescent running around your garden, do you?”

Martin concedes the point.

Jon had a shift scheduled Sunday to make up for the disruption of the weekday schedule from the holidays, but when he got up in the morning, Callum was already in the kitchen, a blanket draped over his shoulders, watching the sunrise with wide, round eyes. Jon buries his hand in Callum’s hair. 

“Good morning,” he says. Callum leans into the touch, even as he scowls. “Want me to braid your hair?” 

Surprisingly, Callum nods.

Callum’s hair isn’t long, exactly, but it’s scraggly and he clearly hasn’t cut it in a very long time, which leaves Jon with plenty to work with. He runs a brush through the tangles and parts it down the center before starting to section it off.

“How’d you get so good at this?” Callum asks, over himself, eyes still focused on the rising light outside the window.

“Muttashi - my grandmother - she insisted, when I started growing my hair out.” Jon laughs, letting his hands work automatically as he reminisces. “She didn’t mind the skirts or the hair, so long as I kept myself tidy. I think she might have actually liked having something to connect over. She was a very beautiful woman, in her youth.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your hair braided, though,” Callum says. 

Jon pauses. “Really?” He ties off the second braid, then moves his hands into his own hair. He works quick, then settles onto the couch next to Callum. “Now we match.”

Callum shoves him, but not before very poorly disguising his pleased expression.

Martin wakes up an hour later to see the two of them very seriously discussing hot glue.

“It’s a redundant thermoplastic,” Jon is insisting, helping Callum hotglue two toothpicks together.

“Maybe you should take him to work,” Martin suggests, desperately fumbling for the kettle. He’d been hoping to spend a bit of time with the kid, ease some of Jon’s workload, but already the chaos of the morning has him seeing fog at the corners of his eyes, and he needs the day alone.

They both look up at him owlishly, and their hotglue-toothpick tower collapses. Callum swears as Jon crows out an I-told-you-so.

“I guess I could tag along,” Callum says when they finish whatever that was. “I can give your coworkers tips on how to bully you properly.”

Jon throws his hands into the air. “They don’t bully me!”

Despite mentally disagreeing with his boyfriend, Martin frowns at Callum. Jon puts a lot of effort into trying to keep Callum happy and cared for, the least he could do was be polite. Callum sticks his tongue out back, and Martin snorts a little and rolls his eyes.

Jon takes the long route to work so he can introduce Callum to the post office cat. They still make it to the library on time, but Jane and Lewis are both already there and look at Jon like he’s kidnapped a child when he shows up with Callum.

“You’re Jane and Lewis, right?” Callum asks brusquely. 

They nod.

“Amateurs,” Callum snorts, moving past them to make himself comfortable on a beanbag chair.

Jon sighs. “Sorry about him, he thinks you lot haven’t done a good enough job bullying me.”

“Smart brat,” says a voice from behind him, and he starts. “Over a month and you haven’t even driven him out yet. I expect better of my people,” Pauline finishes dryly.

Jon rolls his eyes. “I hope there are no hard feelings, I don’t know where he gets these ideas.”

Jane and Lewis share an awkward glance as Jon absently moves a tack that had somehow found its way to his chair.

Pauline walks over to Callum. “How do you put up with him?” she asks.

“You learn,” he responds wisely, before turning back to the comic he picked up.

Jon stays at the library later than his shift, trying to finish up work he won’t be able to take care of over the next couple days with everything closed down. Pauline shoos him out the door when Callum starts reciting monologues from his comics to an audience of just her. Callum shoots her a wink on the way out, which she returns.

Christmas Eve, Jon takes advantage of the free day to make a proper meal, as well as a proper mess of the kitchen. Martin and Callum are both barred from entry while he works.

“He’s such a weird dude,” Callum says, a little meanly. He’d wanted to help, but Jon had just popped a veggie puff into his mouth and sent him back out.

“You could stand to be nicer to him,” Martin snaps. “He puts a lot of effort into trying to help you.”

Callum shrugs. “Never asked him to.”

There’s a knock at the door before Martin can respond. He sighs and rises to answer it, ignoring Callum padding along behind him. The door swings open to reveal a group of carolers and Callum moves to make a rude gesture but before he can and before the carolers can start singing, Martin speaks up.

“Oh, it must be lonely, pulling yourselves out here in the cold from a sense of obligation, knowing that you’ll all spend the next year only acknowledging one another in passing.” It’s not all that scathing, but then he _nods,_ like he truly sympathizes, and the carolers all take on a sort of blank, foggy expression and give them tight smiles and wish them Happy Christmas.

The door swings shut.

“I hate doing that, but those people are always so _rude!_ ” Martin chastises, moving back towards the living room shaking his head.

Almost at that exact moment, Jon pokes his head out to let them know the table is set for dinner.

“Okay,” Callum confesses in a low voice. Jon looks at him, perplexed. “Okay, your boyfriend is kind of cool.”

Jon grins.

  
  


The new year begins cold and dry. Jon still dreams other people’s nightmares. Martin still isolates himself. Jon goes to work, and then to visit Callum, to the point that he is worn thin. Martin grows more and more disapproving. Jon has two days off per week and he spends one of them at the Brodies’ almost without fail. 

“Why are you doing this?” Martin asks one day, in frustration. 

“What do you mean?” Jon asks. 

“He’s fine! Yeah, he’s got a really, really tragic past, and I feel for him, but right now? He’s just a bratty pre-teen. His mother is there for him and he doesn’t even like you, why are you doing this?”

“Martin-”

“No, don’t _Martin_ me. He’s not your responsibility! Jon, you don’t owe every poor bastard reparations for what you didn’t do!”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Jon yells.

“Alright, fine. I’m sorry. He’s just a kid, he doesn’t deserve that. But you’ve got to stop putting the whole fucking world on your shoulders, Jon, you’re doing this because you feel _guilty,_ and you _shouldn’t_.”

“I owe him better than-”

“You don’t owe him shit! You’re just one man, Jon-”

“One man?” Jon says, voice raising. “One _man_? Look at me, Martin, do I look like a man to you?”

His eyes have gone green, his hair floating, the image of him crackling indescribably, so the man Jon disappeared behind the anonymity of the Archivist. It seemed as though the air itself had become the lens through which he saw. “I’m not a _man,_ Martin. I brought about the end of the world.” The air hums, suffocating. 

Martin, too, has begun to glow, the Lonely growing around him like an armor of fog to defend against the unyielding stare of the Ceaseless Watcher. “You didn’t,” he says, as though he is miles away. “Look around you. It’s still here. You don’t have to atone for things that never happened.”

“Do you remember it, Martin? Do you remember the blood, and the screams, and the fear so thick you could _taste_ it?”

“Yes.”

“Then it _happened,_ Martin, time be fucking damned. I consumed a whole world worth of fear and yet I still hunger. Where does that leave a child?”

“Where does it leave you?”

“In debt!” Jon exclaims, just as a loud thump echoes from their doorway. The air through which Jon sees turns, hungry, to see what disturbs them.

There is a many-faced wolf collapsed in their foyer.

“Daisy?” Jon says, less of a question, more sheer disbelief.

The wolf lifts itself to its haunches and turns a hauntingly sharp gaze in their direction before whimpering in relief and fading away to reveal Daisy. Her usual french braid has been shorn off crookedly, her teeth are unnaturally sharp and her mouth is full of blood. Despite no longer being in her bestial form, she looks inhuman. 

“Jon,” she whispers, her voice cracked from disuse. She steps towards him and it is silent. Her eyes are narrow and the muscles in her back roll like she is stalking prey, but Jon doesn’t falter. Instead, he opens his arms and Daisy collapses into them, snarling and snapping, tears streaming down her face. 

The door slams open for a second time, and there stands Basira, gun cocked at the back of Daisy’s head. 

  
  


“Don’t do this,” Jon whispers, still looking for all the world like some sort of horror. His word wouldn’t be enough to sway Basira under the best of circumstances, and certainly not now, when his face is obscured by the haze of the air turning its excruciating gaze unto a tragedy about to unfold. 

Basira clicks the safety and it echoes. 

“Basira,” Martin tries. He’s too far away. She doesn’t hear him.

“Basira, would you like to know why you shouldn’t shoot Daisy?”

The compulsion buzzes in the air. “Yes,” she whispers, haggard. “But I have to-”

“The world already ended, Basira,” Jon says.

“What, are you trying to tell me this is the apocalypse?”

“No,” Jon assures. “It never happened.”

“Give me a straight answer or so help me god,”

“The whole world lived through it, but when it ended, it disappeared. It never ended. And only we remember.”

“What, the two of you?” Martin makes an offended sound at being ignored, and the Lonely begins to fall away from around him.

“No, not just the three of us, avatars. Everyone who died never died, everyone who suffered never suffered, but every avatar remembers.”

“All this sounds like to me is that Daisy knows better than ever exactly what evil she is capable of.”

“You’re right,” Jon says, “She fulfilled the bloodiest fate there is and now that it never happened she’s trying to be human again. You wouldn’t be killing a monster, Basira. You would be killing Daisy.”

For a moment, Basira doesn’t move, her gun still cocked and aimed true, her gaze never faltering. Then, “fuck,” she whispers, holstering her gun and stepping back. “Did you Know that was going to do it, Sims? How the fuck am I meant to trust you?”

“I don’t know, Basira, but do you want to risk it?”

For a second, this is it. But then Basira continues. “So you must have been quite the monster in the apocalypse, then.” She fixes Jon with a look that makes him feel distinctly “other,” even as the air around him becomes less oppressive, even as his eyes return to his deep dark brown.

“I suppose I was,” Jon says, low and honest.

“What a fucking surprise. So? Who did it, in the end? Which one of those fucking beasts managed it?”

Jon is silent for a second. He lowers his gaze. “Me,” he says, “I ended the world.”

Basira whistles, but she looks unsurprised. “Putting that on your resume? Jonathan Sims, bastard, monster, bringer of the apocalypse?” 

“I didn’t want to,” he tries.

“When have you wanted a single terrible thing you were, Jonathan Sims?” Basira laughs bitterly. “You’re responsible for a million evils, aren’t you? But it’s okay. Because you didn’t _want_ them.”

“It never happened. There’s no more apocalypse, Basira, you can’t even remember it.”

“But you can. You remember every terrible thing you did, don’t you? How long was it? How long did you spend, savouring the pain and fear and anguish of an entire world?”

Jon is silent.

Her hand settles back on her holster. “Could you do it again?”

He opens his mouth, but Martin speaks. “Jon,” he says, “It’s nearly 10. Caroline’s shift starts in an hour, you shouldn’t leave her hanging.”

“You think I’m going to let him go off and see some fucking kid, after-”

“Basira,” Martin says politely, “please leave the gun at the door, I’ll make you some tea. If you can stay till tonight you can talk to Jon when he gets back, but he has somewhere he needs to be.” 

  
  


Callum can tell that something is wrong, but this doesn’t stop him from being absolutely terrible.

“Eye man, hey eye guy,” he says hanging precariously from the banister, “look, I’m taller than you.” 

Jon almost feels like pointing out that he isn’t. The banister is pretty shallow and his awkward position gives Callum maybe an extra foot, at best. Callum’s not too short for his age, but he’d need a bigger boost. Jon is still looking down. “Callum, if you fall and hurt yourself I’m going to have to tell your mother,” he says instead.

Callum wrinkles his nose. “So?” he mutters petulantly, but he steps down.

“So, what are your plans for the day?”

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me what to do?” Callum asks, like they haven’t done this song and dance a few times a week for over a month.

“Farbeit from me to tell you what to do,” Jon says, like he does every time. “I’m not going to let you do drugs or jump off a cliff, before you ask.”

“Well, you wanted to know my plans,” Callum says. He hesitates. “Can you help me with something?”

Jon shrugs and Callum sprints up the stairs and returns with a backpack.

“I hate school,” he opens, “but, like. I’m supposed to read this thing and my teacher keeps calling me dumb when I don’t get it and like. I’m not dumb. This thing is dumb, is all. But I don’t want to prove her right so I’ve gotta understand it.

“Your teacher called you dumb?” Jon asked, incredulous.

“Well, not really,” Callum admits. “But she never answers my questions and she keeps failing my assignments even though I tell her I don’t get it. So I have to get it.”

Jon stews in that for a minute, angry.

“Are you gonna help or no, Eye guy?”

Jon snaps out of it. “Give it here,” he says.

Callum hands over an incredibly beat-up 2007 Penguin Classics edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Hah.” Jon gives the book a strange, sappy smile.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Not at all, this is just one of my favorite stories.”

“Really?” Callum asks, disbelieving. “It’s miserable.”

“It’s much better aloud,” Jon confesses. “And with some context. The language is hardly what we use today, I’m honestly appalled a teacher could possibly just dismiss your questions offhand, and-”

“Man, do you ever talk like a normal person?”

“No, I don’t think I do. What would you say to me reading this out loud to you? Stop me whenever you’re not following along.”

“I’m gonna stop you every five seconds, Eye guy, none of this makes any sense.”

“That’s okay. If the goal is to get you to understand, we’ll stop as much as it takes for you to understand.”

“You’re so weird.” He stares at Jon expectantly.

Jon clears his throat. “Act 1, Scene 1. ‘Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour’”

“Stop,” says Callum. “What’s that mean?”

“Nuptial hour? Nuptial as an adjective means relating to weddings or marriage. A ‘nuptial hour’” would refer to a wedding day.”

“Why don’t they just say wedding day, then?”

“It doesn’t sound quite as pretty.”

Callum looks at him solemnly. “I think this Shakespeare dude might almost be as dumb as you.”

“Thank you. Where was I? Right. ‘Our nuptial hour/ draws on apace…’”

Jon reads him the entire play, from opening to end. Callum makes fun of him at least once per page, absolutely tearing into his character voices, but a theatre kid will die a theatre kid. It takes about 6 hours in total, in between Callum’s questions and all the mockery, and they have to break for lunch and then tea, but by the end of it Jon thinks Callum understands the play. Might even enjoy it, maybe. Jon’s at least 80% sure Callum didn’t need the Bottom scenes gone over as much as he’d insisted.

Callum finishes the rest of his homework without Jon’s interference, asking only once for a spelling check. Callum’s penmanship is rushed but tidy, and his words are insightful and intelligent, if a bit scattered. Jon thinks that if he should ever meet Callum’s English teacher, they will have words.

He lets the kid watch a movie after dinner. When they first started, Jon was worried Callum would be fond of horror or gore or something else he'd have to ask Caroline about, but Callum’s favorite genre was feel-good comedy. Jon isn’t exactly a fan, but he appreciates the chance to see Callum laugh. He’s usually such an angry kid, mistrustful of everyone and everything, full of sharp edges. But apocalypse or not, he’s just a kid, with a 13 year old’s sense of humor and a silly, toothy grin. 

When Jon says it’s time for him to get some sleep, Callum tries to shove him down the stairs. But he goes to bed, and when Jon gets in his car and drives home he feels light.

Basira is waiting for him on the stoop. Or, maybe not waiting for him. She just looks tired. Jon joins her, and they sit in silence for a while. 

“I wish you knew me earlier,” Jon says.

Basira looks at him confused.

“Ah, I wasn’t… I wasn’t nicer, I don’t think, but I was a better person.”

“Those are pretty low standards, Archivist,” Basira says, barbed and cruel.

Jon stays silent until she mumbles a half-hearted apology. “I was a better person because people loved me,” he says.

“Take responsibility for your own damn self.”

“I know. But it’s pretty hard to be a bad person when your friend drags you to drinks after work every Friday for Brown Kidz Club, you know? And I’d lost that by the time we started getting to know each other.”

“Brown Kids Club?” Basira asks, thrown by the direction of the conversation.

“With a z,” Jon confirms. He settles back on his hands, looks to the sky instead of Basira. “Tim.”

“Tim?”

“The founder of the Brown Kidz Club.”

“Oh, well now I’m mad he never invited me,” she jokes. 

Jon shoots her a smile. “To be fair, Brown Kidz Club wasn’t always drinks.”

“Got tired of getting drunk under the table?”

“Other way around, actually.”

“Really?” Basira gave Jon a quick once over. “You’re made of twigs.”

“I was an irresponsible college student once!” Jon exclaims in mock offense.

“I think I could lift you with one arm, if you weren’t such a tall bastard,” she muses.

Jon laughs. “I’m sure you could. Nevertheless, once Tim learned he couldn’t get me drunk enough to loosen up a little he’d take me wherever his heart desired. To the movies, until he decided my taste in film was shockingly unpretentious and that he refused to go see blockbusters on his time off. To the theatre, to the park, to dinner, to the roof of his building…”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say it sounds like you were-”

Jon shifts his gaze away, downward.

“... Oh.” Basira looks at him in open surprise and apology. Jon waves her off.

“It’s a lot harder to be a miserable person when you’re being kissed in the rain, I think,” he jokes. His voice is unsteady and Basira sees him swallow and blink rapidly. “I stopped letting him drag me out a few months after we started working in the Archives,” he says. “Prentiss hadn’t happened yet, but I just. I started having this constant feeling of being watched, you see. Isolation was one of my first solutions.”

“Fuck the Eye,” Basira says.

“Fuck the Eye,” Jon agrees.

They sit in silence for a second. Jon finds his bearings and wipes the mistiness away from his eyes.

“Why’d you never say anything?” Basira asks. “You know… after.”

“When would I have?” Jon asks sardonically. “I sort of spent my mourning period mostly dead. What should I have said when I got back? ‘Sorry for leaving you to an impending apocalypse, would you please give me a moment to tell all of you about the man you liked about twice as much as me, who was probably one of the last living people who loved me? I mean, you only ever knew him when he hated me like burning, but to be fair his only real competition could have been my ex-girlfriend, which I know isn’t a great foundation with which to prove my humanity, but wait, first let me clarify; Georgie and I broke up on terrible terms.’”

“Were you always this funny, Sims?”

“My particular brand of humor doesn’t quite lend itself to the dire straits of world-ending shenanigans.”

Basira snorts. “Liar. I’ll put a grand down that you haven’t said a straight word to me this past year.”

“I’ll neither confirm nor deny.” Jon smiles, but it fades quickly. “He didn’t forgive me, even at the end, you know. For any of it.”

“Who, Tim?”

Jon nods. “There’s a… there’s a tape. It’s one of the first things I Knew when I woke up, where to find the tape of just before he died. I keep listening to it, and I keep wondering what would have changed if I just kept going to his fucking drinks.”

Basira places a hesitant hand on his shoulder. He leans in. “We’re not friends,” she whispered. “But I think we could’ve been. So I’m sorry I didn’t know you earlier.”

Martin is already asleep when Jon gets upstairs, tucked into the far corner of the bed, clearly trying to keep his distance. They’ll have to talk about the argument eventually, but for now, Jon sleeps.

Almost as if the universe could tell that Jon had been feeling suspiciously alright, when he opens his eyes, it’s to a small figure trudging through a dead world. 

Except, when Ty sees Jon, his eyes don’t fill with horror and a sense of dread. They light up. Despite his clear exhaustion, Ty sprints through his hellscape straight into Jon’s leg and wraps his arms around his waist.

“Mr. Jon!” Ty says, delighted. “It’s better if I don’t have to walk alone, come on!”

So Jon walks through the End for a night, with a tiny hand in his.

  
  


Jon goes to work Monday morning antsy. He’s meant to be drafting a plan for a Lego character competition, but he keeps eyeing the clock every few minutes like time will pass quicker if he watches it. 

Finally, it is 3:15 and the primary school students burst through the door. Jon’s eyes search, rapid and panicked, for Ty. 

Ty finds him first. Just the night before, his eyes light up and he shakes off the exhaustion to launch himself at Jon. Jon’s arms wind themselves around the small boy and he crouches down to make it a proper hug.

“Thanks for helping me in my nightmare, Mr. Jon,” Ty says. “You make it hurt less.”

Basira is gone by the time Jon gets home. Daisy isn’t. 

She looks forlornly out the window for two days before Jon makes the executive decision to bring her to work.

“I’m telling you,” Rachel hisses, peeking out from behind the cookbooks. “ _Gang activity._ ” 

“I think I might actually believe you now,” Lewis says, cowering, barely daring to glance at Daisy. She’d borrowed some of Jon’s clothes, a deep purple pair of pants and a soft blue peasant blouse, and they hung off her frame awkwardly. 

“Do you think she’s killed someone before?” Jane asks excitedly.

Daisy’s green eyes turn to the three of them sharply. Rachel trips back into the cart, Lewis chokes on his speeding pulse, and Jane faints.

Jon knocks Daisy on the back of her head. 

“You’re supposed to pretend they don’t exist,” he chides.

“Didn’t think about how much you stand out around here,” Daisy mutters. “When I was handing you the keys and shit.”

Jon raises a brow. “Lucky you,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. Are they all like that?”

“Some are worse, some are better. To be honest, it’s not so much worse than the city, except I’m the only one. It’s a bit lonely.”

“Isn’t that your fella’s job?”

“You’re insufferable.” 

“You love it.”

Jon laughs, loud and clear. He looks at his watch. “Ready to be nice to some kids?”

“This is a terrible idea, for the record.”

“Your dissent is noted.”

“Mr. Jon!!” scream 20 separate voices.

“Voices,” he scolds. They automatically bring their fingers to their lips.

“Sorry, Mr. Jon,” whispers Ty. 

“You said you were going to tell us a story about a wolf today!” pouts Alia, less quiet and less sorry.

“Jon,” Daisy mutters, low and warning. 

Jon ignores her. “I am!” he agrees. “See? I even brought the wolf with me!”

The kids giggle. “That’s not a wolf, Mr. Jon,” frowns Janie, a particularly straightforward 9 year old who rather reminds Jon of himself sometimes, “that’s a lady.”

“What did we talk about, Janie?”

“Oh, right! Sorry,” she turns to Daisy. “I’m Janie. Is it okay to call you a lady? I don’t mean to be rude.”

Daisy shakes her head. “You’re not rude. I’m Daisy. You can call me a lady if you want.”

Jon smiles. “Well, folks? Are we going to head to the corner, or are you never going to learn about how Ms. Daisy became a wolf?”

Jon spins a very thinly veiled metaphor about police brutality, and Daisy growls in the appropriate places. At one point, when the wolf in the story decides to leave behind her life of the Hunt, a very small child tugs on her sleeve and offers her a high five.

“Good job,” says the child.

“Thank you,” says Daisy.

  
  


Jon pops into the back office Friday evening to offer to lock up.

“If I’m in no rush, you might as well be,” he says, urging Pauline out the door.

She gives him an odd look. “And what am I rushing out for?”

“Joyce is making roast today.”

Pauline freezes.

“Of your kitchen, I’m assuming, if you don’t get home in-”

Pauline is already out the door, shooting Jon thanks in the form of strict instructions to make sure everything is in order or she will tear him to pieces come Monday. 

Jon puts his hands on his hips and surveys the office. Everything appeared to be in order so he leaned out onto the floor and hollered “Pauline’s left me to lock up!” so his colleagues knew they were free to go.

He got silence in response. 

Running his hands over the useless little knife in his skirt pocket, Jon steps out into the stacks, peeking warrily around the corner, only to see his coworkers frozen in fear… of a bored looking 182 centimeter tall blonde wearing Jon’s sailor stripe a-line dress. “Good lord, Daisy, you scared the shit out of me.”

Her lips twitch. “Reasonable, as I’m here to kidnap you.”

“You can’t, I have to lock up.”

Daisy pouts. “It’s my turn though.”

“It’s not your turn!”

“Sure it is. Michael got a turn, Nikola got a turn-”

“No, I mean, you already got your turn. No seconds.”

“I’ve never kidnapped you yet!”

“What do you call Mike Crew, then.”

“That was barely a day!”

“We had to bury a-” Jon startles and looks at his still, gaping coworkers, “book.”

“It was a fucked up book,” Daisy argues.

“That wasn’t your call to make,” Jon says, forcefully. Daisy looks down at her shoes. Jon sighs and reaches out to hold her softly by the shoulder. “Anyway, you can’t kidnap me, I have to lock up.”

There’s a pause. “I can kidnap you in fifteen minutes,” she concedes.

Jon turns to gather his things, and sees Jane, Rachel, and Lewis, still in tableau where they have been for the past few minutes. He raises an eyebrow. “Well? I’m getting kidnapped in fifteen minutes, is there anything we’ve got left to do?”

“Just this shelving left,” Jane managed to squeak out. Jon nods.

“I’ll take care of it,” he says, stepping to her side to take the cart from her. “You three probably have plans for a Friday night, get out.”

Jane turns bright red and starts trying to stammer out thanks, but Rachel takes her by the collar and drags her away.

“She’s got a crush on you, the little one,” Daisy says, watching over Jon’s shoulder as he absently shelves away the expired holds. 

“Right, the well adjusted librarian from rural Scotland has taken a fancy to the otherwise committed, strange, English-born foreigner who she thinks ran a gang,” Jon scoffs.

“I’m not saying _I_ see the appeal,” Daisy says, “but, yeah.”

Jon shakes his head. “Shut up and let me finish my work so you can tell what my beloved has roped you into.”

As it turns out, Martin had plans to make use of Caroline’s weekend off to take a beach trip.

“Jon love, I hope you don’t mind that I bought you swim trunks. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, but we can buy something else on the way.”

“Trunks are fine,” Jon assures amusedly, watching Martin crawl around inside their little car, trying to cram all the things he had apparently packed for their single day on the coast.

Daisy leans on the horn. “Stop flirting, please, gentleman, we’ve got places to be.”

“You’re free to join us, Ms. Tonner,” Jon says, nose in the air.

“No, you are not,” Martin says firmly, patting the pile he’s finished packing. “No offense meant, Daisy, but if you ever flirt with my boyfriend I will remove your concept of love.”

“Don’t know that I’ve got one of those,” she jokes. Jon tosses a balled up scrap of paper at the back of her head.

“You love us, you little worm, stop acting like an emo teenager.”

“I’m not little,” Daisy complains. “I’m taller than Martin.”

Jon nods. “Martin is also little. My tiny people who I love very much.”

Daisy rolls her eyes and Martin gives Jon a peck. 

“Yes, yes, love is real and you two are in it, let’s get a move on please.”

The drive is barely over an hour total, traffic and all. Jon says they should have just driven up Saturday and made a day trip of it and Martin looks at him in such offense that he laughs and apologizes. Making the most of Daisy’s considerable arm strength they are able to transfer their luggage from the car to the hotel room in a single trip. Daisy mentions she is hungry and Martin pulls out a prepared 3 course meal from somewhere. 

They eat, cross legged on the floor of the hotel room with their plates on the low coffee table between the beds, and talk until the hours turn from evening to night to morning. Jon kisses Martin’s cheek as the sun begins to rise and heads to the balcony for a smoke. Daisy joins him.

“Nice view,” she comments idly. And it is; the low light of the morning blends out from the horizon, bathing the little beach town in a golden glow. There’s no hustle or bustle, but there are people in the streets, lights turning on from storefronts getting ready for the day. 

Jon lets out a puff of smoke and drinks it all in.

“I’m leaving after this,” she continues. “‘S why your boy insisted on the trip. Something to do together, I guess.”

“I’m looking forward to watching the both of you somehow burn in wintertime.”

Her lips quirk. “Yeah, yeah. Hey, spend more time with your gentleman, you bastard, he worries about you. You can afford to take some days off work, you know.”

Jon leans forward onto the balcony rail, feeling it dig into his forearms. “What’ll you do?”

She rolls her eyes at the subject change and shifts next to him in a sort of shrug. “Gotta fix things, I do. Lots of things.”

“Not saying you don’t.” Jon takes a drag, flicks away ash as it falls at his fingertips.”I’m asking what you’re going to do about it.”

“Gonna start with Basira.”

He looks at her then. She sets her jaw, and for a second he almost wants to say she looks like she did before, when she was more muscle than bone and more anger than person. But no, there’s a different kind of certainty in her eyes, and it’s the same one that kept Jon from drowning in that year before the world didn’t end.

“She’s not happy you’ve changed, you know,” Jon says. “Thinks someone’s got to do what you won’t.”

“I won’t let her become that,” Daisy says. “She liked it in me and now that I… she’s trying to fill a void. I won’t let her.”

The filter burns away. “I think that’s a pretty good place to start.” Jon bends down to bury his forehead in her hair. “It’s been nice having you around, though. I’ll miss you.”

“Sap,” she chastises. “You better keep yourself together, you hear? And stop letting your coworkers push you around.”

“Pauline and I get along fine,”

“Pauline thinks you’re as dangerous as a field mouse.”

“Are you telling me I should try to be more intimidating to my boss, Ms. Tonner?”

“‘S what we all did,” Daisy affirms. “And that went great.”

Jon laughs and they fall into a comfortable silence, watching the sun rise.

  
  


By late January, Jon has made himself comfortable in his routine at work. He comes in, asks Pauline how her wife has been, works on paperwork till the students come in, and tells as many stories as he can keep his kids engaged for. He considers cutting back hours at the library but never does, can never bring himself to want to see all those little eager faces _less._ He gets used to which days he has to watch the clock to make sure he’s at Callum’s school by 7pm.

So when Caroline calls one morning when she’s meant to be on the early shift at the hospital, Jon Knows as much as he knows that something is wrong. He picks up on the first ring.

“Jon,” Caroline says, practically crying in relief. “I’m so sorry, I know you have work, but there was an accident on the highway and there’s no way I can get off and they said someone has to be at the office by noon and I don’t-”

“Slow down,” Jon says, more for her benefit than his. He has already grabbed his coat. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “Something with Callum. The school said someone has to be there in an hour because he’s- he’s getting _expelled,_ I don’t understand, he’s been doing so much better these past few months he’s changed so much I just don’t _understand_ -”

“I’ll be there,” Jon promises. “I’ll get it figured out.”

Caroline’s voice is shaky. “Thank you.” 

The line closes.

Jon knocks urgently on Pauline’s office door and gives her a brief excuse of a family emergency before he is running out the door and speeding his way to Callum’s school.

He’s never been inside the school before, but he doesn’t see much reason to linger on the murals of hugging children and people holding hands circling a globe. He walks straight to the headmaster’s office, sees Callum scowling and hunched over himself being scolded by both the headmaster and a soft looking woman, and then sees red. 

Because he Knows what happened now, in full, and there is nothing in him but pure visceral rage. 

Jon ignores the headmaster’s greetings and gets on his knees in front of Callum and whispers a soft hello. Callum turns away and refuses to look at him, but Jon had expected that. He stands back up and sits between Callum and the woman then faces the principal.

“You must be Mr. Sims, correct?” he greets.

Jon nods tersely.

“We’d like to discuss Mr. Brodie’s behavior-”

“I think _Mr. Brodie_ lashed out at being closed into a dark room.”

Callum flinches.

The headmaster sighs. “Mr. Sims, it’s not that simple. He hasn’t given us any explanation for his violent behavior-”

“What’s your name?” Jon asks.

“Sorry?” 

“You know who I am, but you’ve yet to introduce yourself. What’s your name?” 

“James-”

“Right then, James, when Caroline Brodie called you four months ago to discuss her son and his presence at your school, what did she tell you?”

The man puffed up. “She herself said he was a violent-”

“Why?”

He hesitates. “I am not... unsympathetic to Mr. Brodie’s truly tragic history,” Headmaster James Lewis says, slowly but indelicately. “But unjustified violence-”

“Will you let me guess the events that transpired this morning, or would you like me to tell you more directly why you should already know full well why Callum is unable to _explain_ himself while he’s nonverbal and being reprimanded.”

“Mr. Sims, he attacked one of our faculty members.”

“I could have guessed that,” Jon affirms. “Just like I could have guessed that the aforementioned member of your faculty thought it was appropriate to demand that a child stand in a closet with a door that locks before turning out the light, for a _class demonstration._ ”

“I wouldn’t have locked the door,” said the woman primly, as her eyes darted from Callum to her own lap. 

Jon is not appeased. “How was he supposed to know that?” he bites out.

“No one would do that,” she says, and it’s the only thing she’s spoken confidently this whole time.

Jon laughs, cold and dark. “Would you say no one would do that, James?”

Headmaster James Lewis looks frozen to his seat, his expression one of mild horror. Jon turns his attention back to the woman.

“Next time you would like to do a classroom demonstration, Ms. Palmore, get volunteers.”

“He wasn’t participating,” she says, “it was just supposed to be a game. I didn’t know he was scared of the dark.” 

Callum flinches again, so violently the chair shakes under him, and Jon levels both the adults with a glare. “If you think expulsion is fit here, James, you shouldn’t have agreed to accept him as a student when Caroline explained his situation. I think this meeting has been enough of a punishment for now, wouldn’t you agree?”

Headmaster James Lewis opens his mouth for a second but under the scrutiny of Jon and the air itself, he instead nods mutely.

Jon nods and turns to Callum. “Can you get up?” he asks, soft as he can muster. Callum still won’t look at him, but he nods. “Then let’s head out okay?

The drive to the Brodies’ is silent. Jon catches glimpses of the occasional tear slipping down Callum’s face. He pulls into the driveway and moves to undo his seatbelt, but a small hand catches his. 

Callum is still looking down, but when Jon turns to face him, he lifts his head to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Callum whispers, eyes red and swollen.

Jon shakes his head. “ _I’m_ sorry this happened to you, Callum.”

Callums shoulders shake and suddenly the brooding, angry facade cracks and he’s curling in on himself and sobbing. Helplessly, Jon reaches out a hand, and quick as a flash, Callum has pulled himself into Jon’s arms and buried his face in Jon’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry for being so bad,” he whispers between tears. “I was scared.”

Jon holds him tighter.

That’s where Caroline finds them half an hour later, still in the driveway, sobbing and hugging. She doesn’t ask for an explanation, but rather fits herself into the front of Jon’s car and joins them.

Callum doesn’t let go of Jon till he falls asleep that night, and Jon carries him to bed and tucks him in.

“Thank you for being there today,” Caroline says, voice hoarse and heavy. “I don’t know what he would’ve done if-”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Jon says. “You don’t have to thank me.”

Martin’s watching for him from the window when he gets home, and Jon throws open the door and rushes to pepper his face with kisses.

“What’s up with you?” Martin laughs.

Jon smiles softly. “I missed you.”

“You’re such a silly man,” Martin says. “Come to bed.”

  
  


On February 3rd, 2019, a little past noon, Jon wakes Martin up with a kiss.

“Do you want to do something today?” He asks softly.

Martin stretches lethargically and nods.

“Dress nice,” Jon whispers.

Martin shoots him a strange look but nods.

Jon himself pulls out the nicest skirt he brought, a massive, flowing turquoise pavada his grandmother had very indulgently had tailored for him before graduation. Instead of pairing it with the matching blouse and dupatta, he pulls out a skin fitting black turtleneck. He checks himself out awkwardly in the mirror and gets distracted by the swishing of his skirt. 

He blushes when he turns to look at Martin, in a smart navy jacket and matching suit pants.

“You look sharp, darling,” he says.

“Not so shabby yourself,” Martin jokes, wide eyed, reaching a hand up to adjust Jon’s collar where it had rolled down. “Are you going to tell me what I’m getting dressed up for now?”

Jon juts out his chin. “There’s a dance night at the pub,” he says. “I want to dance.”

Martin tilts his head back and laughs. “Then let’s dance.”

They arrive early in the evening, drawing some odd looks, but they keep to themselves and either they fade into the background or they stop noticing the looks fairly quickly. In their little corner, they laugh and they sway and order drinks they don’t drink. Jon impresses Martin with his dance skills. He’s rusty, but years of casual dance and four years of a theatre concentration have some perks.

They leave before the crowd gets too rowdy, and then Jon drives to the outskirts of town and they watch the sky.

“I never lived in a place you could see stars like this,” Jon confides. “They’re beautiful.”

Martin shows him constellations for a long while. Jon thinks the way he tells stories is beautiful. 

“I know I’m not a monster,” Jon says suddenly, after they’ve been out in the night for long enough that everything is still. Martin turns to look at him. 

“Good,” Martin says. “If you didn’t, I’d be worried what you thought of me.”

Jon softens. “You’re the least monstrous person I know.”

“You don’t keep great company, Jon love.”

They laugh.

Martin sobers first. “You don’t owe the world proof that you’re not a monster, Jon.”

“I owe it to myself.”

Martin turns to look at him. “You owe it to yourself? Spending half your days driving back and forth between three different places because of an overwhelming desire to work yourself to the bone and fix a child someone else fucked up, you owe that to yourself?”

“Yes,” Jon agrees. “I owe it to myself.”

“Well you’re going to have to explain that to me, because it looks an awful lot like self-flagellation, and I find I’m pretty familiar with how that looks on you.”

Jon hums and pulls his knees to his chest, his pavadai spreading out in a wide fan. “First of all, I think I owed that last year to myself, too. I fucked it up,” Jon says, interrupting Martin’s protests. “I fucked it up, but I owed it to myself. I needed to make connections with people again. I’d spent the last couple years making everyone I loved and cared about feel used and neglected. I needed to be the kind of person who didn’t do that. It didn’t turn out… great,” Jon admits.

“The world was working against you,” Martin offers.

“I was working against myself, too. The terrible, terrible foundations I built. But I digress. I owe it to myself to be the kind of person who cares, Martin.” He looks down into Martin’s eyes and offers a small smile. “I don’t drive country roads four nights a week because I think I owe Callum something, or because I failed him. I do it because I care about him, and being there for him is how I can show I care. I work full days at the library because, even if spending several hours a day surrounded by old white people with invasive questions and terrible appreciation for customer service is hardly my cup of tea, I like working with books, and I like stories, and I think the world is better when someone is there to encourage kids to like books and to tell them stories. I don’t care about the world that never was, Martin, I care about this one, and I owe it to myself to act on that.”

Martin turns around and lets his back hit Jon’s chest. “Okay,” he whispers.

“Okay?” Jon asks.

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh wow this has been such a ride! I hope y'all enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed writing. Shoutout to my bang partner, mossandfrostguy.tumblr.com and thank you for the amazing amazing art. (you can find the art here: https://mossandfrostguy.tumblr.com/post/628812151776215041/my-piece-for-the-rusty-quill-big-bang-hosted-by) Title is from Charlotte Bronte's Passion. Hit me up on tumblr, atiredpan.tumblr.com! xoxo gossip girl love y'all byyyye


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